Why we needed far smarter meters and thinkers

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Smartgrids and smart meters are gonna be buzzwords this year, (finally - thanks Chattanooga for JFDI) as the competition hots up to reach consumers and achieve EU Policy requirements for energy - which as I recall were supposed to be satisfied by 2008. But, we are miles out with our thinking. Or some are.

This blog post can be read at 5tth.blogspot.com


Chattanooga has shown the way by combining smart grids plus gigabit FTTH. We ignore such examples at our peril, I believe.

Imagine that you had a chance to install "a device" in every single premises in the country. And, just like the meters before them for electricity, this device will be in situ for years. (Mine is, I think, made of Bakelite or similar, and has Norweb on it so it could have been there since 1948! I know it hasn't - I can read too, folks. But it could have been.....)

The FT is reporting today about the partnerships for smartmeters that are springing up. The only mention of anything even vaguely 'smart' is the addition of GPRS. Where are the joined up thinkers in the electricity and utility industries these days???

Put in a smart meter, as in those I heard about in Denmark in 2004/5, that included a wireless antenna. Not so the meter reader can access the meter, but so it creates a wireless mesh network.

The Danish examples had wifi and Bluetooth (well, they had to have Bluetooth in Denmark - he was a Danish king), but why not add options for GSM, 4G, LTE, wimax and a femto cell for seriously joined up thinking?

[Who cares which wireless techs it actually includes, but stick a card slot in the side so it can be updated for all the new techs if you need forward compatability. Or upgrade, shock horror, over the network you have created. Remote upgrades are hardly new, especially in the mobile/wireless industry.]

The point is, we are missing a very serious trick. My house is, unsurprisingly, right next to my neighbours. On both sides. (Odd that!) It is within less than a mile of nearly every other house in the village. It is within 2 miles or so of pretty much every property in the Parish.

A tiny, tiny, tiny, minority of homes and businesses cannot see a single other property around them. Ditto those on grid electricity and water (Oooh look, I've just reduced the Final Third to a Final 0.001% who cannot be served directly from the SmartGrid - sorry, BT).

To put it in plain English: here is THE chance to build a wireless cloud (of multiple flavours, if we chose) which can then be fed by fibre. As they planned, and presumably built, in Denmark (I cannot find a link to the town where this happened, and would appreciate my lovely readers help in doing so....My Danish extends to bluetooth and forkbeard!) - a big fibre ring round town, smart meters in every house creating the RF wireless mesh for INTERNET connectivity.

Now, *that* is a smartgrid. Not just serving the utilities, but also the telcos, mobile operators (who are also telcos, lest we forget), the consumers, the environment, convergence, mobility, data usage etc etc etc.

So, where are the links to the consultation on the official specs of what smart meters should look like in the UK?

Because I think we should all be preventing a serious fup (no, not fair usage policy!) which will affect consumers to the tune of a fair few hundred quid each, slow down smart grid development in the UK, and hinder us yet further by permitting telcos to play in this space at their own speed.

Can we afford, once again, to not exercise the 'smartness' and innovation that used to exemplify British thinking? If I can come up with this in the middle of nowhere in Cumbria, surely some overpaid exec in the midst of things in the utility industry and government can see the potential of joining up a few dots?

Actually, whilst we are on the subject, why not hold on the BDUK money until we can have an innovative pilot that really does join the dots by including smart grids?

(Send in the trolls......)



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FTTH Council Conference, Milan

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Read more! Don't forget to book your pre-conference workshops. There is quite a choice, although the focus is definitely on funding and sustainability at present, but the Trentino one should put all of Britain except one small village to shame so I'm looking forward to that session.

This blog post can be read at 5tth.blogspot.com



I'm there as a reporter for Computer Weekly as well as wearing my normal hat of a UK consumer/end user. I'll be in the Press Room some of the time - just on the right after the Entrance - if anyone wants to catch up, promote their products, or tell me about the many places where we know rural FTTH works just fine e.g. the Fibre to the Farmyard speakers, please do. Or DM me on Twitter @digitaldales during the event.

Ciao!



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Showing some moral fibre in the UK

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Read more! Few of us are willing to pretend that sweating the copper asset is good. Because it is only good for BT shareholders. And even that is now debatable. It certainly isn't an option if we want to take on the world. Right now, with the plans available from our incumbent, the UK would struggle to competitively take on anyone for FTTH by 2017.

Is that what we want as a nation?



This blog post can be read at 5tth.blogspot.com



It really is time that people stood up to BT in this country and made inroads into the necessary infrastructure investment and deployment that is required to get us back on the road to innovation and implementation.

We can pretend that FTTC, Cornwall, Infinity, and multiple other farcical announcements are good for the country. Or we can JFD what is required. Luckily, there are many who believe that copper is only good for socks, kettles and bracelets, and who know that BT is not required to deliver any level of 21st century network deployment.

New non-BT exchanges are being built as I write, and it is time for every community to realise that you do not need, nor want, BT Infinity if you wish to get to a Chattanooga or Korean level of connectivity. Not just sooner rather than later, but AT ALL.

It is time to take BT out of the first mile entirely. There is a place in FiWi Pie for them, but as a wholesaler. Openretch has had its day.

We need to climb out of the box, and understand that the biggest 'drag' on this country's move into 21st century comms is the company we gave an ageing infrastructure to, and failed to apply functional separation to.

Luckily, we no longer need that ageing copper-based infrastructure, nor the companies around it, and each and every community can build its own community broadband network in this day and age, without requiring the incumbent's involvement. We don't need new quangos either - time to JFDI.

So, let's start.....

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Broadband is a basic human right

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Read more! Hate to say "I told you so" but I've been saying this for years. (And many of you thought I was mad/wrong/deluded back then). Access to broadband is a human right. And now, ITU has called for country's leaders to get on with it and make high speed broadband a civil right. (Our proposed USO is looking even less appropriate now).


This blog post can be read at 5tth.blogspot.com

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In the press release from the International Telecommunications Union is this quote:

“In the 21st century, affordable, ubiquitous broadband networks will be as critical to social and economic prosperity as networks like transport, water and power.

The Access to Broadband Campaign, of which I was co-founder, had the following tagline, which we wrote back in 2001:

The Access to Broadband Campaign exists to promote the universal availability of true broadband Internet access.

A is for Access

B is for Bridging the broadband digital divide

C is for Community empowerment

We also wrote:

The Access to Broadband Campaign represents the interests of UK consumers in advocating the faster deployment of affordable broadband access throughout the entirety of the UK covering both urban and rural areas.

Whilst those of us initially involved in ABC have taken different paths now, mainly because we were too far ahead of the game, what we felt back then is ever more relevant today.

As I said to someone at the conference, I feel as though we have all been pushing an enormous rock up a mountain for this last 15 years, and it is about to go over the summit and gain unstoppable momentum which will bring ubiquitous FTTH and FiWi to everyone. Today, I feel that is even more likely, and that Philip Virgo may well be right in saying that Rory's conference is the culmination of all these years of work and be that 'pivotal' point. Three cheers.

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No more discussions, we need decisions

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Read more! As FCC people wend their way towards our European shores next month for the conference season, let's not lose sight of what is happening elsewhere. It is a particular failing of this isle to filter out events elsewhere in the mistaken belief "we know best".

This blog post can be read at 5tth.blogspot.com

Michael Copps, FCC Commissioner, has put out a one paragraph statement that bears several readings. The issue, Net neutrality, is not one which we can avoid either. Nor is his statement so simplistic that we cannot also apply it to our own regulatory environment.

“Some will claim this announcement moves the discussion forward. That’s one of its many problems. It is time to move a decision forward—a decision to reassert FCC authority over broadband telecommunications, to guarantee an open Internet now and forever, and to put the interests of consumers in front of the interests of giant corporations.”

Replace "FCC" with "Ofcom" or "ASA". Focus particularly on "discussion" versus "decision". Consider "authority", "open", "interest", "consumers", and "corporations".

Re-word this statement from current UK or EU perspective, and it is of worthy of 2 minutes consideration by us all in Europe today.

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JFDI for your community

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Read more! Recently, some of us, who make no claims at all to be telecoms experts (unlike others I could name and shame) have come under fire for our views, lack of technical expertise etc. In fact, it reminds me of a previous era, nigh on 8-10 years ago, when our views as first gen doers rather than complainants, came under equivalent fire. This blog post can be read at http://5tth.blogspot.com

I make no bones about not understanding all there is to know about FTTH, fibre splicing, tier 1,2,3 etc, and have spent much of my children's childhood and college allowance on trying to educate myself so I can at least try to argue the case for what I believe in. (Which is a lot more practical than technical). According to the recent critics, not with much success. BUT, I know that I have skills, as do many others around me, that none of the critics can even dream about possessing.

Which is why I welcome the fact that the government has finally stopped taking consultants' views as the 'real thing' and started listening to real people. Not necessarily me, I hasten to add, but people who have a vision of how the UK could look and how to achieve it.

One of those who has listened to many views is my recently elected MP - Rory Stewart. I've read parts of his books and am envious of his experiences walking, alone, across the Far East, India, as well as his task as CPA etc. I've been to that part of the world, too. But my book doesn't have quite such an exciting title nor probably content as his - Fiasco. Hmmm! But he is another one who saw the value of taking a sabbatical and getting real world experience. And for that - utmost respect to one of a new generation of MPs who actually have real world experience. His recent columns in our local paper have made refreshing reading.

And now today, we will see something new and novel and exciting. Especially for our patch. I'd like to say to the disclaimers, especially as a Quaker - HOLD YOUR FIRE. The world has moved on, new things are afoot, give us a chance to prove ourselves. There are an awful lot of people seemingly on (y)our side to make things happen - JFDI - and they are in positions of knowledge, experience, expertise, and more. Please join in, inside of trying the 'divide and conquer' tactic.

Let us have a chance to show our hand, to do what is required to achieve 'our dreams', and if/when we don't (again, for some of us) then, and only then, knock us down. Or you could be stopping exactly what this country requires - innovation, creativity, out of the box thinking, collaboration, co-operation etc.

I lived in Spanish speaking countries for a long time and I would say - Mañana es otro dia. All of you who are ripping shreds out of some of the grassroots people, you can either watch, or you can get involved. It's up to you.

If you know so much, then contribute, collaborate, co-operate and make it happen for this country, a little bit at a time. As someone said recently, "It's just like eating an elephant. If we all take a bite, it will be dealt with so much quicker". (Conservationists, pls back off - it's a theoretical elephant!!!)

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University connects surrounding community to a Gig

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Read more! Fantastic. Great Britain take note. This is co-operation, vision and collaboration at its very best. We could easily be doing the same here in the UK...

Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, Ohio has come up with a plan to be deeply envious of. Realising that the neighbours to the university campus are in a fairly dire plight, not just with internet connectivity, but socially and economically too, they are rolling out an ambitious university research project to connect 25,000 residents to 1000Mbps fibre.

An unprecedented collaboration of university researchers, technologists, public sector institutional partners in the region, and vendors will bring neighbors around the University the same quality Internet connectivity that students, faculty, and staff enjoy on the campus. The University Circle Innovation Zone beta block will be a research project conducted by the University in cooperation with more than 40 institutional partners, technology vendors, and community organizations. Eventually, the University Circle Innovation Zone seeks to connect more than 25,000 residents..

The project is intended to have specific metrics and objectives in order to deliver key evidence about the impact that technology and the solutions it permits have on the surrounding community.

A smart connected community is a portfolio of endeavors to leverage broadband technologies to affect positive change in the lives of neighbors and in the communities where we live, work, and play. The University Circle Innovation Zone gigabit to the home research project is being supported by unprecedented co-investments by the research community, start up ventures in Cleveland and around the region, and major underwriting support by an “A” group of technology vendors, partners, and thought leaders who, along with Case Western Reserve University, believe in the efficacy of testing and analyzing the impact that broadband can have on real challenges and priorities of the community.

These guys have really got it!!! Don't sit around in conferences and meeting rooms talking about the problems and possible solutions. Don't keep everything to yourself - co-operate and collaborate. And most importantly - JFDI.

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Lack of broadband and estate agents

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Read more! Just been sent this by an estate agent who I have been pestering for years about people asking about broadband when viewing homes to buy...

He is based in the Yorkshire Dales....

At least 75% of viewings to "rural" in the sticks properties have a conversation regarding broadband availability and sometimes speed, but that's a bit technical for me. 100% of those questioners would not buy a property if the answer was negative! It's a huge disincentive if you are not connected.

I did try getting the National Association of Estate Agents to ask all its members back in 2004/5 but they didn't understand what I was on about. "Broadband? What's that then?" was pretty much the answer I got back! Perhaps it might be worth following that one up again......?

If you know any estate agents, why not ask them how often they are asked about broadband during viewings?

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50p levy vs property tax

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Read more! Here's a question for you to ponder on this Sunday evening....50p levy minus the property tax on homes passed....

If the property tax for NGA domestic and CATV (cable TV) is £7.50 per home passed (HP) per year, (let's leave aside the £250/Rkm for each fibre lit for the moment, though that figure makes my argument even more obvious), and the new proposed 50p levy will raise £6 per household per annum, then why not just waive the property tax to stimulate FTTH?

Never mind how much it will take to administer the fund and collect the levy, imagine if you (that's a rather royal 'we' when talking about this government!) just said, "No property tax on (rural) properties -business and domestic- passed, and connected, just get on with rolling out superfast broadband (in rural areas)."

Because rural needs to be first, and there is standard classification of rural and remote, it's not difficult to work out how to make that happen and encourage the FTTH players to be attracted to rural areas. Oh, better spell it out I guess....waive the property tax first on Significant Rural, Rural-50 and Rural-80 eg anywhere with a population less than 37000. Why? Because all the urban places are considered low hanging fruit to the telcos and there isn't really any issue about market failure there with NGA.

And if connecting rural homes and businesses promotes investment, (which there is plenty of evidence from other countries far in advance of us to prove it) and we can then watch the economic impact on rural areas (which will of course hence create jobs for consultants and quangos to gather the hard data and evidence that such is the case), then it will accelerate the roll-out of FTTH nationwide....and the government will coin it in from economic regeneration, innovation, new businesses, income tax etc.

See, tis easy this joined up thinking lark. And remember.... you heard it here first!

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Ponderings on fibre optic property rates

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Read more! I have been trawling for yet more information on property rates, as you know, and have come up with these ponderings from an open access, community project, mutually owned, mainly rural, point of view......

There are potentially some mis-assumptions going around about business rates and telecoms. But I could really do with interviewing a certain someone from VOA to get accurate answers to certain questions currently being asked. (Will go camp outside his office if necessary - it's only up t'road!)

FACTS, summarising what I have been reading:

1) The Valuation Office Agency (VOA) is independent to rate collection authorities (I am presuming this means local authorities eg councils)
2) It is an Executive Agency of HMRC and operates in England and Wales
3) The Uniform Business Rate (UBR) for telecoms is set by Government and is reviewed every 5 years (next review 2010 and it is based on valuation AVD Antecedent Valuation Date set in 2008)
4) The Rateable Value (RV) is set by the VO
5) The rate appears to be either paid on Homes Passed (HP) £7.50 (domestic) or on fibre kilometres (businesses) from the fibre rent scale
6) There are considerable variations to take into account when applying the scale eg >3000km, change in network size by more than 10% etc etc)
7) The general rule of thumb is that active network is not rateable and passive network is.
8) 2010 valuations will be available from October 2009
9) There are 4 people on the VOA Telecoms team

Ponderings

*The LGFA 1988 (Local Government Finance Act) should allow councils to offer rate relief (discretionary and mandatory), but because the VO is involved rather than the normal rate collecting authorities, much of LGFA 1988 appears to be irrelevant. Which begs the question why it is the Act that the VO are using to justify property tax on fibre.
*The non-domestic property rate on fibre optic is applied nationally and takes no account whatsoever of rural, charitable status etc, which LGFA 1988 does. Nor does it take into account that by applying taxes at a flat rate nationally, certain areas, communities and citizens are considerably disadvantaged. This is an issue which IS covered and dealt with in the LGFA 1988 where local councils have the discretion to ensure their citizens and businesses are not discriminated against or suffer hardship by applying the ratings in the Act. No such protection is offered for hardship caused by taxing fibre optics.
*The current system for applying property rates to fibre in particular discriminates against rural areas by being payable per km. Obviously rural fibre lengths have to be longer than in an urban environment.
*But, on the other hand, you pass less houses in a rural area than in an urban one....
* Wouldn't it be more logical to stop distance-related tariffs such as this and have an income-based tariff instead to prevent rural discrimination?
*However, if you pay per Rkm (Route km) of fibre lit, you can avoid paying more tax by using less fibre. What this does is actually continue the scarcity out of abundance model, and it actively encourages telcos (or communities) to put less fibre in the ground (or light it) than they should. (Note: we must learn from the NTL problem - fibre should be dug in one time to do the job required, now and in the future). Why pay tax on 12Rkm of fibre (12 x 1km of fibre) instead of just 2Rkm (2 x1km of fibre)? Never mind that this means the fibre in the ground is then limited /scarce..... This in itself has serious implications for the eNdGAme
* Luckily, there are ways to put multiple wavelengths down a single fibre, but how many (rural) community projects will a) know about these technologies and b) be able to afford them?
* When paying property rates on fibre for a community project, and you have home businesses, or SME's within your village, how complicated does the calculation become then?
* Should community networks only have "home connections" (whether it is to a business or not) so they only have to pay £7.50 per connection per year rates? If they were allowed the £6 from every landline they pass, this would mean they only need to pay £1.50...
* An hereditament is by definition anything which can be inherited. So, if I lay fibre, can I leave it to my kids in my will? Because if I can't, then I shouldn't be paying rates on it, n'est-ce pas?
* If a community owns and uses the asset, rather than a telco, then there are no tenants nor landlords of the 'property' and ergo tax is not due. Surely?
* Sewers are exempt, as is agricultural land. So, if I lay fibre across a farmer's land, does that mean that the fibre is exempt from property tax because the land is?
* If I install fibre throughout my home or business premises, including to my shed, rather than ethernet or wireless, do I have to pay tax on it?
* When fibre tax is paid, is it distributed using the Barnett Formula to the council from whom it has been collected as with other business rates (difficult since telecoms ducts, cable etc will cross boundaries but dealt with, apparently, in Regulation 6 of the 1989 Non-domestic Ratings (Miscellaneous Provisions) Regulations) or does it just go to the Treasury? [I think I may have answered my own question here by finding that extra regulation!]
* How much was collected and re-distributed to each council in England and Wales in the lifetime of the previous list which ended in 2005? (There seem to still be some outstanding appeals as only the 2000 list is fully squared up, so how much was re-distributed from the 2000 list too?)
* How much fibre remains dark instead of lit purely because of the non-domestic property rates applied to it? (Any telco care to comment anonymously on this?!)

Just a few things to think about during next week.

Another link with yet more options for solving the NGA fibre optic tax conundrum - article by Geoff McKeown of Fibre Technologies

I understand there is no BSG meeting with VOA after all next week, so await a response about what further action is being taken by BSG. It is to be hoped that the BSG will let ALL members know of any developments in this area, particularly those of us who have been following this issue for a very long time now, and those new to BSG who are becoming ever more interested in the effect that a lack of joined up thinking (as taken in other countries eg Korea, where all property tax on fibre was waived, or Holland / Amsterdam) is having on encouraging FTTH/NGA rollout.

I am still seeking further info on how other countries within the EU have dealt with this problem...anyone got any more links? (Any language can be coped with in our now multi-lingual group!)

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Cable companies continue to mislead the punters

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Read more! For those of us in the UK, Virgin's Mother of all broadband adverts claiming to be 'fibre optic' have been driving us to distraction for quite some time. (Virgin is a cable company so in their case what they are flogging is FTTC - Fibre To The Co-ax) Now the misleading of the public is continuing in Holland with this advert.....

The problem is that bodies set up to protect the public from misleading adverts eg the Advertising Standards Agency are in on the act, for instance, by making rulings about complaints made when the Virgin ads first started to air in 2008.

The point being that ISPS and telcos have redefined many aspects of the broadband world to suit their own ends viz the redefinition of "broadband" from 2Mbps+ symmetrical capable of simultaneously transmitting and receiving voice, video and data (back in 1984) to "um...well, any data connection that we can get away with convincing Joe Public and government, Ofcom etc might be called 'broadband', however slow, incapable of doing more than one thing at once, asymmetric....." (you know the marketing spiel yourselves!).

The continuing failure by the telcos and ISPS to monitor their own marketing has not been assisted by Ofcom and other regulators, who seem to steer clear of getting involved in ensuring the consumers and customers are told the truth. All that is required is to lay down a few guidelines to telcos about what they rightly can and cannot call their products or claim about their networks.

Just because Fibre is the new black in the world of broadband, does not mean that everyone can suddenly include the word 'fibre' in their advertising to jump on the bandwagon. Unless consumers are accurately informed, and not misled by marketing departments, how on earth can they make the decisions about which products will suit their needs or understand how the changes in technology affect their ability to use 'broadband' to live, work and play online?

It is time for an EU wide enforcement of accurate advertising standards for the telcos before we have further consumer confusion with 'fibre broadband'. The rot has already set in, and it needs stopping NOW.

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